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(Lest They Leave - Chapter 1)
Finally on my way somewhere, she thought to herself, looking out the windows of the Marseille – Paris train that was taking her home for the first time in fifteen years, and not merely for the sizzling heat of summer or the snowy chill of Christmas, not merely to visit. No, to stay.
She was very excited.
They had just left Lyon, the stopover there long enough that the passengers travelling first class were allowed to step out on the platform for a spell, stretch their legs, buy some candy from the little boy with the tray full of the stuff. He served the people outside first, before walking along the row of compartments where the second- and third-class passengers hung out of the open windows, fingers pointing and arms reaching for the goodies. Children were crying and screaming. It was a right hustle and bustle.
First class was noticeably calmer, quieter, there were no disturbances aside from the ticket inspector, a fat but cheerful man checking for new arrivals every time the train had rolled out of another station. He’d asked her twice already, travelling alone, mademoiselle? To which she had answered each time, yes, thrilling, isn’t it? On the other side of the aisle from her sat a young guy, no more than a handful of years her senior, and after hearing this exchange, he was eyeing her constantly with an interest she wasn’t sure she understood or found quite the cat’s meow.
Her twin aunties, Marguerite and Marceline, whose house she had lived in since enrolling with the art academy in Marseille a couple of years ago had pointedly kept her away from all gatherings they deemed ‘bad for the character’ which included any and all jazz parties. As such, Sylvie hadn’t been able to socialise much with people her own age outside of school, and she had barely been allowed to have her hair cut in the bob that she currently sported, though on that right she had insisted. Hair doesn’t corrupt anyone, she’d argued.
Marguerite and Marceline weren’t convinced, the Bible said otherwise, after all, as Sylvie should know, but after a whole day’s pleading and begging, they’d given in, at last. They’d never once complimented Sylvie’s new hairstyle, but neither had they criticized it, which was a compliment on its own, she’d gathered and besides, it suited her, her blonde locks looking almost halo-like this way.
She had a feeling the young man across the aisle thought so, too. He stayed in his seat, but the next time she caught him looking, he was purposefully late to avoid Sylvie’s gaze, instead winking at her cheekily, which made her blush and turn away her eyes once more.
Nothing but fields outside the windows, France in April. She’d had to abort her spring semester halfway through, unable to determine when she would be able to return. My brother needs me, she had explained to the secretary who’d taken note, but otherwise shown Sylvie’s family matters little concern. As such, Sylvie left the administrative office, then the old halls without looking back.
On my way, she’d comforted herself, somewhere. Only two hours of travel separated her from Paris now. Paris and her older brother, Paris and her childhood home.
Just two more hours, after a whole lifetime of waiting.
People would look at them and never know they were siblings, Charles and her.
He came to collect her at Gare du Nord, a large, bulky man who looked at least a decade older than he was, strapped into a fancy suit, complete with vest and pocket watch, and Sylvie who, so she’d been told, could still fool anyone into thinking she was eighteen at best. The innocence in your features, Marceline had said when she sent her off in the morning, don’t ruin it, mon chou.
How do you ruin innocence, Sylvie had consequently been wondering as the journey grew long and tiresome, how do you ruin such features? She imagined it was something her old headmistress at Sainte-Odile would’ve had a strong opinion about but as was her habit, Sylvie wouldn’t have listened, and Abbess Thérèse or any of the other sisters wouldn’t have held it against her for long either. Meanwhile, the train had crossed through valleys and mountains, by way of bridges and tunnels, that visibly human touch to God’s unspoiled nature.
Maybe therein lay the answer.
Leading the way to the automobile parked out front, a suitcase in each hand, Charles more or less tossed her spartan selection of belongings into the arms of the chauffeur, he must be newly hired, Sylvie hadn’t seen him before, not waiting for the man to put them away before he himself opened the door to the backseat for her, supporting her by three fingers as she climbed inside, and following immediately after.
The chauffeur shut the door after them with a muttered, monsieur, mademoiselle, before moving up front to turn the crank and have the ignition system started by hand, the car was an older model. He cursed while doing it. Only then did he take his seat at the steering wheel in the front compartment, from where he might work the key to get the vehicle really going. In the silence between herself and her brother, because they’d hardly spoken ten words to each other yet, Sylvie could hear the engine fire up, it was a deliberate and slow process, took a couple of tries to catch. Once more, the chauffeur cursed in the same muttered voice, finally managing to turn the systems on, attempt number four.
The automobile came alive.
“You’ve cut your hair,” Charles, who looked as much like their father as Sylvie looked like their mother, commented in a tone of voice that made it difficult for her to gauge whether he liked it or not.
“A change of address requires a change of hairdo, didn’t you know?” she replied, trying for a half-laugh. When the arrangements had been finalized for her to move back to Paris, she’d seen her chance not to go unchanged for all eternity, not to wear her hair to her bum until the day she died, thank goodness, and she’d grabbed it. “The aunties didn’t agree, but I was forgiven.”
The way his lips twisted in a wry smile didn’t elude her. It pleased her greatly. “It suits you,” was his final verdict.
Sylvie beamed.
The rest of the way to the family townhouse in Montreuil, they acted like two strangers who’d happened to catch the same taxicab, her older brother and her, staring out their respective car window, to each their respective side of the road, and Sylvie wondered if that was going to be symptomatic for their interaction going forward, as it had been symptomatic for their interaction going back, too, ever since that ship sank, their parents on the passenger list. She wondered whether they would continue to see the world from each of their different perspectives. Whether they would at some point meet again.
She had been gone for so long. When did she last talk to him in person, New Year’s Eve? No, she celebrated New Year with the aunties, so it must’ve been earlier than that, even. Christmas? Maybe.
Chewing on her lower lip, she watched the busy roads of inner Paris grow slowly more deserted, fewer cars, fewer people, Montreuil wasn’t Versailles or Bougival, naturally, but it wasn’t Montmartre or Le Marais either. And it was mostly rich people who lived there, people who know to keep their distance, Charles had explained once. We don’t like pancake sellers and fruit vendors on our lawns.
We don’t? She’d asked because she had been eleven years old at the time, and she’d personally thought pancake sellers and fruit vendors on their lawn sounded lovely.
Truth be told, she still did. If one had to be honest now, didn’t it sound like a good time?
The townhouse was located in the far end of the neighbourhood, pretending to be independent from the rest of the big villas and luxury apartment buildings that had been constructed around it. With the large driveway, which had been lain while automobiles were still new and rare, but their father had predicted the future of those vehicles, the same way he’d predicted how the purchase of one coffeehouse would be the start of a chain, a right empire, and with the subsequent snobbish size of everything in extension of it, it wasn’t unfathomable why people called it the Manor House, much as they called her brother, the Coffee Baron, in acknowledgement of his standing and his wealth.
In acknowledgement that no one in Paris could order a cup of coffee brewed on beans which hadn’t been through the hands of the Gallard family. A coin in the Coffee Baron’s pocket, people laughed when they’d bought a pound of ground coffee at one of his shops of which there were many.
More than a coin, in that case, Sylvie had heard her brother mutter at one point, leaving an emergency meeting with his accountants the morning after Christmas.
Her two suitcases, although heavily packed, looked terribly small in front of the stairway leading up to the front doors. Once more her brother grabbed them both and hurled them along, as they ascended the marble steps together, Sylvie having to hurry in order to keep up. His tall frame and his long legs gave him an advantage over her in this world. Her legs, shorter but more well-shaped, her body softer, more pliant. Him, like their father and she, like their mother to the bone.
Even the townhouse, they didn’t look at the same way, probably. What was it to him, a symbol? Whereas it was a home to her. A home in which she hadn’t spent more than a few days, a few weeks at a time for a whole decade and a half. She had looked so much forward to moving back into her quarters. The ones in which she was usually a guest, but where she would now be a resident. She would live here, she would stay.
And Charles? He would no longer be her legal guardian, but her family, a true older brother.
They were on their way. Somewhere.
Somewhere shiny and new, Sylvie hadn’t a doubt.
Her quarters lay in extension of the conservatory. If she just kept her doors open, the bright golden light that fell through the glass walls and the sloping glass ceiling would stretch and crawl until it kissed the floors around her threshold. She had always loved this, how the sun would tint half her room in nuances of warm copper and sharp whitish yellow.
Charles dropped her suitcases on the floor right where the light bordered on the shadows, caring little for her perfumes and toiletries that were jostled around in there as a result. The one thing he had said to her on their walk to the eastern wing of the house was that she’d need new clothes, to measure up to Parisian standards, and he’d already booked a dressmaker to come take her measurements for a new wardrobe the following day.
The onslaught of surprise she felt had done nothing, however, to curb her giddiness. Really, new dresses! How exciting! And Parisian standards definitely meant dresses the aunties wouldn’t have approved of, something that only made it better, didn’t it?
While she opened the first suitcase and started unpacking her art supplies, most of them having survived the transit and even Charles’ careless handling methods, Charles watched her, the way she was crouching in front of the open trunk, slowly unwrapping brushes and pencils from the little handkerchiefs she’d had them wrapped in for protection. Oh, so many handkerchiefs she’d borrowed from Marguerite and Marceline, never to be returned, most likely. One could hope. Sketchbooks, charcoal (of which most had broken in halves or worse), the remains of an old life in Southern France.
She held them all gingerly between her pale hands.
“I’ll be hosting a party this weekend,” he said, suddenly. Sylvie turned her head and looked up at him, his imposing, broad-shouldered figure in the dark brown suit with the matching vest and polished, mahogany-hue shoes that she could all but glimpse her own reflection in, should she try to lean forward enough on her hands and knees. “To introduce my sister to the darbs and their city.”
Raising her chin, she met his gaze, blinking a couple of times. Her eyes soon began to prickle wetly, and she looked away, down, the palette with its dried rainbow of colours. Sylvie was a bright person, you could see it in her paintings, she had simply never been allowed to shine before. Yet, here was Charles, wanting her to meet the darbs, the wealthy, influential people of Paris, and he wanted her to be a part of the society they ran, fifty years after nobility had lost their rights and recognition in France.
Titles might be out, but that only meant money ruled even more supreme.
“Thank you, Charles,” she spoke in a low voice, putting the palette down and straightening up to her full height, not as impressive as his, but she was on level with his chest and men’s chests, she’d been told at boarding school, were for hugging. So, that was what Sylvie did. She stepped forward until she could sling her arms around his waist and embrace him fully, her brother, her last close relative to have survived. She recalled how he’d begged their parents to take him with them on the big boat, how he’d been furious with them when they’d refused. He’d sulked until the moment the news had been on the radio. Just in, the unsinkable ship has sunk… Realising belatedly that Sylvie was in the room, too, he’d quickly turned the thing off and started playing ball with her.
Like that, she’d had no idea until the police showed up. Then, all the evils of Pandora’s box were out. The sky was falling, the world crumbling, though Charles had shouldered it like some mighty Atlas.
“Thank you,” she repeated.
Noticeably awkward in her grip, he patted her shoulder once, twice, then stepped back, putting distance between them again. Again, she wondered if it was going to be symptomatic for their relationship, if it wasn’t already. A symptom.
This distance, this silence, the way he had never been able to stand her near and she, on the other hand, had always struggled to figure out what to say to him when she was.
“Get yourself sorted,” Charles said over one shoulder when he turned around to exit her quarters, the early sunset dying the back of his suit jacket some shade of amber as he passed by the conservatory on his way down the wide hallway that ran straight through the house from one end to the other, east wing to west wing, past dining rooms and living rooms, kitchens and guest bedrooms, one ballroom, the staircase to the cellars where their father had kept the wine and Charles hadn’t seen to change that.
While other things had been changed beyond recognition. Her hair was short now. Her brother was a grown-up.
Supposedly, Sylvie was as well.
He didn’t tell her he was leaving.
Around seven o’clock that same night, Sylvie just found herself wandering the hallways and the many eerily empty rooms of the large house in search of him, unable to locate him anywhere. The door to his private quarters was locked, so she ended up standing in front of his bedroom like a fool, one hand on the door handle that wouldn’t budge, wouldn’t give. A maid, it was Claire, Claire wasn’t the new one, Claire was familiar, happened to come by at that very moment, seeing her there which made Sylvie at least retract her hand – hastily, as if she’d been caught in some forbidden act. The brass of the handle was growing heated beneath her palm and fingers, she’d wrestled it so thoroughly.
“Can I help you, mademoiselle?” Claire inquired lightly, as the most experienced of their maids, she knew the right intonation and the way to bow her head. Sylvie, in turn, raised her chin, feigning a courage she didn’t embody in any other way but the physical, her chin held it all. Inside, she felt seven years old again, the radio getting turned off too quickly for her to catch any news of her sad fate.
“Where is my brother? I can’t find him anywhere,” she asked by way of answering.
Claire looked uncertain, though it didn’t translate to her voice when she replied, “Monsieur Gallard has gone to the theatre, mademoiselle.”
“To the theatre?” Sylvie replied stupidly, staring at the poor woman in her black and white uniform, her hands clasped neatly in front of herself. What a world she had suddenly found herself in, with the clueless Gallard sister, huh? And what a world Sylvie had suddenly found herself in as well; she’d never known Charles to take any interest in the arts, that had always been Sylvie’s domain all on her own.
It had never been something they could share, and she’d honestly thought it bored him. Definitely, her art always seemed to.
How dangerous presumptions were.
“Does he often go to the theatre?” she demanded to know after only a second’s deliberation of the question. It felt so insincere, to learn these things not from Charles himself, but the woman who served their meals and scrubbed their floors, loyally. Nevertheless, Sylvie knew, he’d never tell her of his own accord. If she wanted to know, and she did, she was quite desperate to, the staff was her sole pathway. As such, she kept asking.
“On occasion, several times a week, mademoiselle. Followed by periods when he doesn’t go at all.”
Sylvie took a moment to consider this. Then, a bit hesitantly, as if she wasn’t truly keen on knowing the truth which she was asking about, she said: “With whom does he go?”
Not with me, it meant. It would never be with me.
The maid, too, appeared uncertain, wringing her hands as she forced herself not to hold anything back from the new mistress of the household. “Most often, he goes by himself, mademoiselle. Other times, he takes friends.”
“Friends?” Now, Sylvie simply couldn’t stop herself anymore. Ladies or gents, it meant, although it was not important, it wasn’t any of her concern; she was his sister, not his wife, not even his girlfriend, least of all his mistress. She had no right to any part of his life, but therein lay the problem. She had no right, while Charles had every right. It wasn’t fair!
Seven-year-old Sylvie was kicking and screaming the much-tried police officer who’d come to inform Charles and her of their parents’ assumed death at sea, she was kicking and screaming all over again.
“Men, mademoiselle Gallard. When he doesn’t go alone, he brings other men with him,” Claire reassured her. It settled her system a little to know, and Sylvie felt her shoulders dropping into a more relaxed posture as she finally stepped away from the door.
“When does he usually come back?”
“Late, mademoiselle. Sometimes long after midnight, but he always returns before dawn.”
But he always returns before dawn, said the maid who had served in this house for as long as Sylvie could remember; she would know for certain. Like the hand of a mother, smoothening a child’s hair, it soothed Sylvie to hear. In the end, her brother wouldn’t abandon her for good, he would return with the day. With the gilded light crawling over her threshold, Charles would be sure to come back, to the house and to her.
Nodding once, she dismissed the maid, “Thank you, Claire.” Claire who always presented them with the turkey on Christmas Eve. Claire who could make herself invisible as fast as she could make herself present anywhere, what an ability to have, yes? Sylvie expected the other woman, maybe ten years older than her brother, to grab her chance, curtsy and be off, but something possessed Claire to hesitate again, to wait and lastly ask:
“I’m on my way home, mademoiselle, but do you need anything from the kitchen? I can quickly prepare something for you.”
The question caught her completely off-guard. It was care. It was concern. Therefore, shortly after, a wide smile crept onto her face, and she remembered her mother, she remembered her mother instructing her to always be kind, always be glad, because kindness and gladness had a tendency to come back to a person. Sylvie wondered when she had last shown the maid kindness. She wondered when she’d get the opportunity again.
Hopefully soon.
“Please don’t worry about it,” she responded. “I’ll be dandy.” Until my brother comes home, implied.
And as the maid curtsied, before at long last being able to continue down the hallway, the evening shadows tracing her every step, Sylvie followed her with her gaze and, for the first time, maybe, that day or evermore, believed it herself.
She’d be fine. She’d be just dandy.
When she was a little girl, her favourite playtime activity had been hide-and-seek, she’d played it with her father and with her mother, and she’d played it with Charles, too, when he could be bothered. It was how she knew the townhouse best, according to where the hiding spots that were all the cat’s pajamas could be found. Beneath the old bench in the kitchen. Among the tall shelves in the cellar, though the cellar was also a little bit scary, dark and mouldy-smelling. In her mother’s closets, though those had long since been emptied. In the garage, which these days was full. A small collection of vehicles, a car and an old carriage, shining chrome and metallics inside that old structure which held all those memories from long ago, originally meant for horses and livestock.
Sylvie knew her home mostly in the past tense, having spent little of her adult life here, so the following morning she embarked on a rediscovery tour, finding all her old hide-outs again, trying to squeeze back under the old bench where it stood in the exact same place beneath the far-end kitchen window, much to the cook’s amusement. “Don’t get stuck in there, mademoiselle,” she hummed, busy making the dough for the daily round of baguettes.
Baguettes for the household, baguettes for the staff.
Laughing, Sylvie got up off the floor, the bench too small now or she too big for the fit to be either comfortable or easy. She sat down on the worn piece of furniture and looked around the sunlit space, with the traditional stone oven still in use, the more modern stoves, the interior that had been fully renovated maybe eight years ago. Her knees pressed together primly, she leaned forward and rested her elbows on them, chin in the palm of one hand. It didn’t look like anything out of a magazine, exactly, but it looked awfully romantic. It looked awfully cozy, didn’t it? Home.
Footfalls resounded down the hallway on the other side of the open door, until Charles emerged in the doorway, looking around enquiringly. His eyes fell on her, and he seemed to relax. A part of her wondered if he’d been searching for her, if they’d played their old games of hide-and-seek without even knowing or if, at least, he’d worried. A part of her hoped.
“There you are,” he said.
“You found me,” Sylvie replied, giggling. Then, at his slightly puzzled look, she felt quite silly for having made such an exclamation. She got to her feet.
“Come, the dressmaker is here,” was his only response. For a moment, she searched his face for any signs of tiredness, stress wrinkles, anything that could indicate what kind of night he’d had, but he looked the same as ever, exactly as she knew him to be, impeccable and always, always unfazed. A hurricane could hit Charles Gallard, Sylvie thought, it would be too bad for the hurricane. Without a doubt, the man would be the last one standing.
“The dressmaker,” she repeated and quickly reached up with both hands to nervously smoothen her hair, push a few locks behind one ear. “Already? It’s not even ten o’clock.”
“I’ve told him I need the first garments before the weekend,” Charles commented, checking his pocket watch, their father’s old spare. His other one, he’d brought along for the journey. “What day is it today?” He glanced up at her; he wasn’t asking because he didn’t know, he was asking because he wanted her to tell him, making her feel like a schoolgirl who was being examined.
“Tuesday,” she said. That would give the poor man less than two days to finish.
“So, we better get started early.” Now, her brother was leaning back slightly to throw a look down the hallway behind him, his attention everywhere else than on her. He simply reached out an arm blindly and waved his hand with some ill-concealed impatience, “Come on.”
Hearing herself say, “Of course” – her manner demure like she’d once have spoken the words to Abbess Thérèse in her office at the institute, Sylvie crossed the floor, the cook respectfully quiet and keeping her eyes lowered on her hands at work, while her master grabbed her mistress by the shoulder and led her out the door at a march.
The dressmaker had been shown to their mother’s old dressing room, which in the meantime had been repurposed for storage, but the old, tall mirrors still inhabited every corner and every wall, so it was only a matter of moving some boxes aside, and it was well-equipped to function as a sewing room. The man had laid out a large selection of fabrics already, when they arrived, greeting Charles in more than the usual, flattering terms, monsieur Gallard, what an honour, I thank you most humbly for the opportunity. He then turned towards Sylvie and looked her up and down with a pair of professionally evaluating eyes. I take it, this is the young lady?
Sylvie waited her turn, politely.
“Sylvie, my sister, she needs a full wardrobe –” her brother began.
“Yes, so your secretary mentioned, a full wardrobe.” The dressmaker had little stars in his eyes. Or was it coins? A coin out of the Coffee Baron’s pocket.
“– but we’ll require that a full outfit is ready to wear no later than Friday morning at ten, monsieur Martin,” her brother finished.
“Of course, of course,” monsieur Martin said, mimicking the words Sylvie had spoken not five minutes prior, as if that was the automatic response that Charles generated. Of course, of course. Nevertheless, as if reassured by this reply, her brother finally released his hold on her shoulder, stepped back and made as if to leave. Almost panicked, Sylvie spun towards him, calling out:
“Charles, aren’t you going to stay?”
“I won’t be of any help here,” he dismissed her simply, stepping out into the main hallway and shutting the door behind him, entrusting her to monsieur Martin, the dressmaker and a bunch of fabrics that were too bright and too gaudy to resemble anything she’d ever worn before. At school, it was the uniform. At her aunties, it was all but the same, a uniform by any other name. Sylvie could feel her eyes wide and fearful as she slowly turned back, meeting monsieur Martin’s gaze behind his spectacles, professional, but not unsympathetic.
“Don’t worry, mademoiselle Gallard. They are nice fabrics.”
She huffed out a surprised laugh, nodding in understanding, though she nursed that one defiant thought regardless, Charles could’ve been a great help to her.
Nevertheless, the dressmaker was right, they were very nice fabrics, and by the end of the afternoon, Sylvie had found friends among them.
On her own, she walked monsieur Martin to the door, seeing him out, the way her mother used to see out guests. Before the boat sank, the sky fell, and the world crumbled. Before Charles got locked in position beneath all those things.
And before Sylvie had to give up hide-and-seek, so as not to disturb him, with France weighing down on one shoulder and, what, the Alps and Italy on the other. All of Europe hanging heavily across his back.
Oh, some people wore florals, all right.
Some people wore the ground.